Jack Best and The Conquered Heart

by Steve Olley

How do these things begin? In this case it was just the simple matter of arriving home on Tuesday night, and pressing the button on my answer machine; strange how such a simple act can change your life.

It was a voice from my past, and it filled the room like the presence of a ghost. A voice loaded with memory that instantly shot away all other thoughts from my head. Even though twelve years had passed since I had heard him speak, I knew right away that it was my brother, Tom.

I was so surprised that I did not hear what he was saying, just the reluctant tone to his voice. I played it again.

“Jack, it's Tom.” There was a pause. “I know it's been a while, but… Hey, it just seems that the reason we don't talk anymore has long since passed, that the only reason for not calling is habit, or just one of us needing to pick up the phone and call. Well I guess this is that call, Jack. Well in a way. I'm not sure I would have made it if I hadn't needed to. Stubborn, I guess. We've both got that in common.

“Listen to me, man I hate answer machines. Get to the point, Tom. OK, Jack, I'm calling because it's time, and because I need your help. So call me, or better still come down here.” Tom sighed and then he said: “Please Jack.”

It was the uneasy edge to those last two words that got me. The Tom I remembered was tough. He never showed fear, even if it was present. But as I listened again to the message, I knew by his tone that something was wrong.

When I returned the call no one picked up, and there was no answer machine. I tried a couple more times, but again no answer. So I decided to go down there instead; back to the place where I grew up. It had to wait till Friday morning, while I finished up some business, but for the next few days my mind was full with thoughts of my old home town.

Middleton was a steel town of about 50,000 people, about a two hour drive, out on the opposite side of the city from New Dresden. Seventeen years ago I moved out of there, up to the city to become a cop. I used to go back occasionally, at least till my parents died; after that, Middleton became just a place I had lived, and home was a time in my past that no longer existed.

The few times I did go back, somehow Tom and I would always end up arguing. It wasn't him so much as his wife, Maria's, family that I took exception to. She had a kid sister named Carmen. Where Maria was kind and gentle, Carmen was hard and cruel. She had married a guy ten years her senior. His name was Jerry. He ran a nightclub downtown, and it was clear to me, even back then, that his activities were far from legal. Of course Tom didn't want to hear it. Maria loved her sister and Tom knew that the friction I caused upset her deeply. Maria was always a fragile soul. Twelve years ago the argument went too far, and that was the end of it.

The only news I'd heard was from a cop I knew down there, called Jonny Tackabury. He was the one who told me that Maria had died. That was five years ago now. When Jonny T. told me, she had already been dead for three months. I sent Tom a card of condolence, but I never heard back from him. When I quit the force and moved to New Dresden and set up as a private detective, I sent Tom a card with my new address and telephone number on it, but again I heard nothing back; nothing all these years till that message on Tuesday night.

**

I drove down there on Friday morning. All steel towns can be pretty grim places, but Middleton was worse, because two years before the steel plant had closed down. Now all that was left were slag heaps and that unmistakable odor of rust and decay, and a town that was rapidly losing its relevance.

For Sale signs, on underpriced homes that were never going to sell, spread through the streets like a pox of despair. The town was all washed up. The population decreasing by the day, as people fled north to the city. But for many there never seems to be that choice, fear or circumstance holds them to their roots. There were those of course who still believed, who hoped that something or someone might come along and save them. But each month another store closed, another business went bankrupt. The only places that still flourished were the clubs and the strip joints, dollar stores and skid row.

Tom had been one of the works managers at the steel plant. He'd made good money. He had a house out on Taylor Avenue . It was one of the older parts of town. A tree lined street of old brick houses with gingerbread trim and wide front porches, where you'd sit on a hot summer's evening rocking in your chair to the rhythm of crickets and cicadas. But this was mid November; damp, leafless trees and only a long cold winter to look forward to.

The street was busy outside Tom's place, cars lined both sides of the road, but I found a spot just past the house and parked the Sunfire. As I walked back I saw a group of people standing in the driveway. I recognized Carmen and Jerry. Carmen, with her dyed blonde hair, and her make up that had been applied in defiance of subtlety, had squeezed her ample figure into a tight black dress. Jerry looked uncomfortable in his dark suit, moving as if it were made of glass. He was a large man, broad shouldered, with a thick neck that held up a tough face, that bore witness to stories too wicked to tell. A couple of younger men stood beside him, slimmer than Jerry, long stern faces, like obedient Dobermans.

Carmen saw me first.

“What are you doing here?” she said.

“I've come to see my brother.”

Jerry yanked at his tie with sausage-like fingers, as if to give him self room to speak. “I wondered how long it would be before you showed up,” he said.

“How's business, Jerry, still ripping people off at that club of yours?”

The Dobermans stood to attention.

“It's OK,” said Jerry, as he stretched his neck away from the constraints of his tie. He looked like an old turtle peering out from the shell of his suit.

“What's up, Jerry, getting to old to take care of your self?”

“I don't need them to take you down, Jack. And for your information, I run all the clubs downtown now.”

“Come up in the world, eh Jerry? How many people did you have to threaten to get those?”

Jerry smiled, but there was no humor in it.

“You better watch yourself, Jack; this town has changed since you were here last.”

“Yeah, it's beginning to look old and rundown, a bit like you.”

It took him a moment; it was like stabbing a brontosaurus in the tail. Eventually the message reached his brain. His eyebrows arched and he stepped forward into my space. He was a good six inches taller than me.

“I'm warning you, Jack,” he growled.

I waved my hand in front of my face.

“Has no one ever mentioned breath mints, Jerry?”

A wild look came into his eyes and he clenched his fists.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please, not today.” A man in a dark suit and a priest collar came running out of the house. He stepped between Jerry and I and we backed off. I recognized Father Dennehey, the minister from the local church. “Please gentlemen; this is not the time or place. Let's show some respect, please.”

Jerry and Carmen backed away, the Dobermans followed, but their eyes stayed locked on mine till they climbed into a big blue four-door pick-up and drove away.

Father Dennehey and I watched their truck speed up the street. He was a stocky man, short grey hair, a hewn stone of a face that was difficult to read.

“It's been a long time since I saw you, Jack. Are you here to see your brother?” he said, his voice honed with a touch of his Irish youth.

“Yes Father.”

We stepped through the open door into Tom's house.

“He's in the back room,” said Father Dennehey.

There were other people in the house, vaguely remembered faces from a lifetime long ago. Why were they there? It was beginning to alarm me. What had Father Dennehey said: “Not today…Let's show some respect.”

I walked down the hall to the back room. It was the largest room in the house, and had big patio doors that looked out on a well kept yard. Half a dozen people crowded around something at the far end, none of them my brother. They looked at me with surprised faces, and then as they moved aside I saw the open coffin.

I stepped forward. Tom was lying inside. For a moment I could not comprehend what I was seeing. Why was he in the coffin? Was he playing a joke like when we were boys together? I reached in and touched his hand. It was cold. Tom was dead.

I felt my breaths coming short and fast. I realized it was shock. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pack of mints. The sweet taste calmed me. I breathed in deeply and let it out slowly.

Someone stepped up beside me. It was a girl, about 12 or 13 years old. Long brown hair hung around a calm beauty that would last. She did not look into the coffin; instead her sad blue eyes looked at me.

“Uncle Jack,” she said, “you came.” The tears fell from her eyes. Instinctively I turned and held her, and she sobbed gently, her face hidden in my coat. I sensed the audience and led her away from their prying eyes, out the patio doors and across the lawn to a wrought iron bench.

We sat and looked out across a ravine full of bare trees. I took off my coat and draped it across her shoulders. She looked at me and smiled and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I recognized my mother's smile, in what had to be the face of her granddaughter.

I remembered back a dozen years: Tom and I arguing, the baby crying in the other room, Maria coming and telling us to quiet down as we had woken up…Kathrin.

I said her name and she looked at me.

“Are you OK now?”

“Yes Uncle Jack.”

“I have not seen you since you were a baby, so how did you know who I was?”

“Photographs. Dad has a collection of old ones he keeps in a shoe box. When it's wet outside and I'm stuck for something to do, he always lets me look through the box with him.” She paused. “It never seemed such a big deal before.” Her bottom lip trembled so I put my arm around her, and we stared out across the trees at a hawk hovering and gliding over the ravine.

“They said you wouldn't come, said that you hadn't spoken for twelve years, but I knew you'd come. Dad told me all about you. Even if you hadn't spoken he knew what was happening. You're a private detective aren't you?”

“Yes I am.”

“We read about some of your cases in the newspaper. There was that fire at Eddie Bannon's night club, and then how you helped that journalist put away Mickey Drake.”

“Kathrin, do you feel up to telling me what happened to your father?”

“You don't know?”

“To be honest with you, Kathrin, I came here to talk to your father.”

Her brow furrowed.

“I don't understand. Didn't anyone tell you?”

I shook my head.

Kathrin muttered something disagreeable under her breath, and then something occurred to her.

“So if they didn't call you, why did you come?”

“He called me and left a message on my machine, asking to see me.”

“He did?”

“Yes, three days ago.”

Kathrin smiled weakly and her eyes filled with tears again.

“I told him to call you,” she said.

“What happened, Kathrin?”

“It happened on Tuesday, probably not long after he called you. Dad's car went off the road on a tight bend and rolled into a ravine. They say it was an accident, but Dad knew that road, he'd driven it many times before. But no one wants to hear me when I tell them that it was no accident. It's like I'm being disrespectful or something.

“They think I'm saying it because I'm upset. Well I am upset, but that's got nothing to do with this. Something isn't right about all this. Dad was troubled. I could tell he was in a fix. When I pressed him, he said that there was no one he could trust anymore. When I asked him what he meant, he wouldn't tell me. That's when I brought your name up.

“I told him that if he needed help then he should call you. I told him that no matter what happened in the past, you were his brother and if he were in trouble, you'd help. That's what brothers do.”

**

Father Dennehey conducted the funeral. It was a large affair. Many people in the town had known him, but apart from Kathrin, no one seemed upset. Father Dennehey had taken charge of her, temporarily. Her only family in Middleton was Jerry and Carmen, but we all knew they'd never take her.

Father Dennehey gave the eulogy, an unemotional list of Tom's achievements: his work with the church, his charity work, his determination to get the town back on its feet. There was barely a mention of Kathrin.

After it was all over, I drove out to the edge of town and checked into a motel. It would have been so easy to have just kept going, to have put this town behind me for good, but I knew I had to take a look into Tom's accident. I could at least do that for Kathrin.

**

The next morning I went down to see Father Dennehey. He seemed a little reluctant to tell me where the crash had occurred.

“Everyone knows it was an accident, Jack. Even if Tom did know the road it's still tricky. If you don't give it your full attention, well this is what happens.”

“Still, Father, it doesn't hurt to take a look.”

“You know, Jack, things in the community right now are pretty desperate. If you go around stirring things up, stepping on people's toes, well that's not going to do anyone any good now is it?”

“Father, you know you're wasting your breath. I'm just taking a look. If like you say it was just an accident, then that's what I'll find.”

**

The road where Tom crashed was not a busy one. It ran down by the river. People used it as a shortcut to bypass downtown. At times it ran at the same level as the water, following its twists and turns, other times it rose above it, climbing steeply, still shadowing the stream, but at a distance, as if the glistening flow were a serpent whose venom had to be respected. It was at the road's highest point that Tom had crashed. A steep bank fell away from the road, covered with trees and bushes that hid the river, which like the snake slipped silently away.

I parked a little way back from where the road curved to the left, and walked forwards to the bend. There were no skid marks on the road. I stopped where it turned sharply and looked down. The brush was all flattened, small trees snapped off, and then about a hundred foot down I could see great gouges in the trunk of a large tree where the car had come to a halt. There were big dents in the muddy ground that looked as if they had been caused by the car as it rolled over several times before hitting the tree.

My first impression from the scene was that Father Dennehey was right; if something had been troubling Tom, perhaps his concentration had wavered, maybe just for a second, but a second that brought fatal consequences.

Of course something could have gone wrong with the car. I phoned the Middleton Police and got them to connect me with Ben Martin in the Police garage. Ben was a friend of mine that I had known since school. He'd always wanted to be a mechanic as far back as I could remember. A passion no doubt inspired by watching and helping his Dad restore fifty year old Case tractors when he was a boy. He worked for the police now out at their garage. He'd gone to college a few years back and now doubled as chief mechanic and crash investigator. When I got through to him, I arranged for us to meet up at 3pm.

**

Before I headed that way, I drove back to Tom's house. I wanted to take a look through his study there; to see if I could find out what it was that had been troubling him. There were no cars parked in the street this time.

I found the door to his house locked. Carmen had the key, but I remembered where they used to keep the spare. I found it hidden under a rock in the flowerbed. It was a little rusty but it still worked.

The house was cold. My footsteps echoed through the place; Tom's hollow home, as empty now as his corpse was in that coffin. His study was at the back of the house, in a room that the realtors were sure to call cozy. A small square room, with an old desk, a few filing cabinets and a comfy looking winged chair by a bookcase. There was a window that looked out across the lawn to a bird table, where sparrows complained at the lack of food. There was a gloomy chill to the room, so I turned on a banker's lamp that stood on the desk. Its glow gave the room a sense of warmth, even if it wasn't there.

Tom was fastidious about keeping things tidy; the office was as neat as a pin, everything in order and easy to find. I went through his bank statements, bill receipts, files on his ongoing business. It didn't take me long to realize that Tom was trying to get the old managers from the steel plant together, to see if they could get something going again. They'd drawn up a business plan for a proposed smaller version of the old factory. It was still a long way from getting off the ground, and now with Tom gone perhaps those hopes had vanished completely.

In one of his desk drawers I found a red and black notebook and a small soft-covered diary. The notebook was full of information pertaining to his work with re-opening the steel plant; there were also summaries of meetings he had attended, and at the back of the book was a long list of names and addresses. The diary was for appointments. It looked like Tom had been busier than when he'd worked at the steel plant.

On the day before he died, the Monday, there was the entry: Travis 8pm. At the top of the page for Tuesday was a seven digit number that I realized was my own telephone number. Also listed for Tom's last day was the entry: Hendricks 11am, which had been scribbled out and roughly written in beneath it, Father Dennehey. Then beneath that: Det. Dan Hoskins 3:30pm.

As I finished reading I heard the front door open and close, followed by the unmistakable sound of high heels. Carmen appeared at the door to the study, perched on spike stilettos, dressed in an orange top and a set of sky blue pants. She looked like a clown on stilts.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I might ask you the same question.”

She hesitated. I saw her eyes flick down at the notebook and diary.

“Father Dennehey asked me to get Kathrin's clothes together,” she said. “So why are you here?”

“It's my brother's house, Carmen.”

“Yeah, but not yours.” She glared at me. “So what are you looking for, money? Because you won't find any.”

“What have you already taken it?”

“I don't need Tom's money. Jerry makes more money than you or Tom could ever dream of. You still haven't answered my question.”

“Just checking some things out for Kathrin.”

“So it's you who has been stirring her up?”

“If you mean am I the only one who's been listening to her concerns, then yes. If it was an accident then fine, but I have to find out for myself. He was my brother you know.”

“You stopped caring about Tom a long time ago, Jack, and as for Kathrin, you're not helping her, so why don't you do us all a favor and leave.”

She turned around and walked back down the hall, tapping her way upstairs to Kathrin's bedroom. I switched off the banker's lamp, slipped the notebook and diary into my pocket and left the house, taking the spare key with me.

**

I expected to find Ben Martin dressed in overalls and up to his elbows in grease, but he was sat at a desk in a shirt and tie, two-finger typing at a computer.

“Hey Ben.”

“Jack, it's good to see you. Man, how long has it been?”

“Too long, Ben, too long.”

Ben stood up and put on a jacket that had been hanging on the back of the chair. Over the years, Ben's body had expanded in all directions, except height, and his thick black hair was now shaded with grey. But his handshake was just as solid, his smile just as genuine.

“What's with the suit?” I asked.

“Ha, yeah, things have changed a bit since I last saw you, Jack.”

“So no more grease?”

“Well actually I still put on the overalls once in a while. But I leave most of the maintenance work to my crew. I'm mostly involved with the crashed vehicle inspections.” He stopped for a moment, as if he'd just remembered something. “Sorry about Tom,” he said, “he was a good man.”

“Thanks Ben.”

“So, do you want to take a look?”

“Sure.”

We walked out of his office into a large 6 bay garage. The smell of oil and rubber permeated the air, its scent marking this place for a breed of men who spoke a language I didn't understand. They chatted loudly to each other, their heads buried in the intestines of cars like mechanical surgeons. A radio was playing somewhere, the music barely audible above the intermittent buzz of an automatic wrench.

At the far end of the garage we came to a separate area where they had Tom's car. It looked like a Chevy Impala, but it was hard to tell because of the damage. The front half of the vehicle was badly squashed, the back half marked by various dents.

“Not a pretty sight I'm afraid,” said Ben, but I wasn't listening. I was with Tom as his car left the road, the sudden confusion, the sharp percussive bangs, the car rolling over, the roof crushing in, the pain. I took a deep breath and tried to focus.

I wanted to ask Ben whether there had been anything wrong with the car, but for the moment I found words hard to say. I walked around to the far side of the vehicle. I noticed that the front tire was not the usual one, but a smaller spare. I pointed at it.

“Yeah I noticed that,” said Ben. The flat one is in the trunk. It was quite a tear, just short of bursting the tire, but it would have stopped him immediately.”

Ben walked to the back of the car, where, despite the damage, he managed to open the trunk. Inside were the punctured tire, the jack and wrench, just thrown haphazardly inside. Something didn't seem quite right about that.

“What caused the flat?” I asked.

“A shard of steel.”

I gave him a puzzled look.

“You find a lot of bits like that out on the old plant road,” he said; “remnants from the days when the business was up and running, shipping out metal every day.”

“MARTIN!” A loud booming voice called out across the garage.

Ben looked to the other end of the garage, where a large fat man with Dizzy Gillespie cheeks and eyebrows like Groucho Marx chewed on an unlit cigar. Ben cursed under his breath and then turned to me.

“It's the Chief,” he said. “We've got his car in the shop. You're not really supposed to be back here.”

“Sorry, Ben.”

“You'd better go,” he said. “Come back later and I'll tell you what I found.”

I slipped out a side door as Ben marched back up to Chief Blutto. I drove a short way to a coffee shop where I rested in a booth by the window, watching the trucks drive by, letting my mind get things straight.

I knew what hadn't seemed right about the trunk of Tom's car. It had all been thrown in without a care and Tom just didn't do things like that. Maybe he had been in a hurry to get somewhere. I took out the notebook and diary. I figured the flat must have occurred recently; otherwise he would have had it fixed. In that last week he'd arranged three meetings. The first was with a Travis. I took a look through the notebook and found him listed in the address section: Nathan Travis, 1685 Plant Road .

**

As I climbed back into my car, the sun made an appearance. It brought light to the bruised streets, a soothing balm, healing but ephemeral. I flowed with the traffic, easing through to the far side of town, till I cut loose and turned down the old Plant Road . The steel plant spread over many acres, various concrete blocks and towers, like the ruins of some ugly modern castle, surrounded by a fence instead of a moat. A rusting six foot chain link barrier, where the grass had grown wild and giant thistles stood like sentinels along the vine infested fence.

I had to slow down by the factory, waiting for a couple of guys in a security truck to turn into the plant. I guess there was enough still left in the place to warrant the security. The steel plant was the first place on the road, so 1685 had to be much further out.

Out past the plant the countryside came up; fields of corn and soy beans, patches of forest, and the occasional barn. The road curved around to the north and soon I came to 1685. An old clapboard farmhouse, painted white with black trim, guarded by a set of pines that reached up into a grey sky. I pulled into the laneway, and parked up behind an old Ford pick-up. A big dog, with thick husky fur, was chained to one of the trees, and decided it was time to earn his keep. After a mouthful of barks the door opened and a friendly looking guy appeared. He wore a set of blue overalls, a pair of rubber boots and a John Deere hat that tried its best to keep down a mess of grey hair. It was Nathan Travis. When I told him who I was, he shook twice, first my hand and then his head, which he did in as sad a shake as any head could manage.

There was a strong cold wind blowing from the north, so Nathan invited me inside. We stepped into a large kitchen, where he introduced me to his wife, Julia, a small woman with a kindly face, who insisted we sit down at the large pine table while she brewed up some coffee. There was a wood-burning stove crackling away in the other room, and a large old clock was ticking away time as the wind howled around the complaining house.

It seems the meeting with Tom had been about some land that Nathan Travis owned. It was either side of a bridge further along plant road that Tom wanted to widen, in order that larger trucks could access the plant from the north.

Nathan said that Tom arrived a little early for their 8pm meeting and left around 10pm.

I thanked Nathan and Julia and headed back to town.

So if he had not been late for his meeting, then maybe Tom got the flat on the way back to town.

The sun had escaped the angry clouds again, and hung low in the sky, defying the horizon. I drove slowly, passing through the long shadows of trees and between fields mellowed by a setting sun.

As I got closer to the plant I slowed right down and scanned the gravel at the side of the road. Just past the gates to the shipping department, I noticed tire tracks where someone had pulled off the road. I stopped and got out. There were marks on the ground that could easily have been caused by someone changing a tire.

The wind was gusting, rustling the long grass, but above the sound I thought I could hear voices. I looked through the tangle of thistles and vines, and through the fence into the plant. I could see the security guys who I had seen earlier, but now they had company. There were three police cruisers parked just inside the gates, and a group of cops were stood around something on the ground. It looked like a body.

I got back in my car and drove around to the front entrance and parked behind the police cruisers. I was met by a young cop.

“Sorry, you can't go any further,' said the kid.

“What's happened?”

“Please sir you are on private property.”

“It's OK,” I said getting out of the car. “Who's in charge here?”

“Detective Tackabury.”

“Jonny T. Can I see him? Tell him it's Jack Best.”

The young cop went over to the group huddled around the body. A tall, lean looking man, who had been crouching by the corpse now stood up. It was Jonny T. He gave out instructions and the scrum began to break apart. Fanning out around the dead guy, praying heads searched the ground.

Jonny T. came over. He was well dressed, impeccably groomed and his face was suitably intense for the situation, as if he expected me to be waiting with a camera.

“Jack, it's good to see you.” He shook my hand. “I heard about your brother, sorry man. What can I do for you?”

“What's the deal?”

“Ah! Just another execution. Bullet in the back of the head.” He spoke as if words bored him.

“Another execution?”

“Yeah, Jack, things have got pretty ugly around here these last couple of years.”

“You mean since the plant closed?”

“Desperate times. Survival of the fittest. You know how it works.” There was a tiredness to his voice or was it bitterness, it was hard to tell.

“Any clues?”

“No, these guys know all about evidence, and they're not leaving any. We'll go through the motions, but I don't see anything useful turning up. So what brings you out this way?”

Jonny had dark, searching, hawk-like eyes.

“Oh, I've just been out to see a couple Tom knew, further out along Plant Road , and then I saw you guys in here on my way back in, thought you might be here.”

A gust of wind came out of nowhere and seemed to drive its cold air right through us. It broke his gaze and the concentration left his face.

“Man I hate this time of year,” he said.

“Maybe you should get a transfer to Florida ,”

“ Hawaii would be better.”

I laughed for the both of us.

“How long's the body been there?” I asked.

“The Doc hasn't been yet. But the security guards said that the last time they drove through this part of the plant was Monday afternoon, so it could have been anytime after that, but it looks to me as if it's been there for a few days. So why all the interest?”

The raptor's eyes were on me again.

“You know me, Jonny, once a cop, always a cop.”

“It's funny isn't it,” he said, the searching eyes relaxing as if he had discovered what he thought to be the reason for my visit. “Ex-cops always remember the best parts about being in the force. They forget all the bad stuff that drove them to leave in the first place.”

“Selective amnesia, Jonny. It's what keeps us sane. Anyway, I'll let you get back to your victim. Who is it, anybody I'd know?”

“I doubt it, Jack. It's a guy named Hendricks.”

We shook hands and I turned to walk away, the corpse shouted out to me from where he lay, repeating his name through cold dead lips. I took a couple of steps then turned around.

“Jonny.”

“Jack.”

“Do you know a Detective Hoskins?”

“No, can't say I do. Someone you know?”

“No, but I thought you might.”

“Well sorry, Jack, never heard of him.”

**

Someone once told me that there is no such thing as a coincidence, and experience has taught me to believe in the validity of that statement. I drove back into town, over to a strip mall near Tom's house. A couple of fast food joints winked at me, and my stomach whistled back. I parked the car, but before I headed in I took out Tom's notebook. I looked through it, but could not find any mention of Hendricks; all I had was that scribbled out entry in the diary.

I took out my phone and called, my friend in New Dresden, Detective Lou Harry.

He answered with his usual bellow.

“Hey Lou, it's Jack.”

“Hey Jack how's it going with your brother?”

“Not too good, Lou, he's dead.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, Jack. What happened?”

“The official version is a car accident.”

“Official version, so I'm guessing you're thinking otherwise.”

“I'm beginning to have my suspicions.”

“So how can I help?”

“Thanks, Lou. There are a couple of names I want to run by you. Have you ever heard of a cop called Detective Dan Hoskins?”

Jack could hear Lou thinking.

“Not off hand, Jack. Oh! Wait a minute, wasn't there a guy in the city, in the drug squad?”

“No, Lou, that was Charlie Hoskins. I've got another name that I'd like you to run through the computer for me. It's a guy named, Hendricks. I have this feeling that you'll find something on him.”

“No first name?”

“No.”

“OK, I'll call you back, if I find anything.”

“Thanks Lou.”

I put my phone away and stepped out of the car to get some food, when someone said my name. I turned around and there were Kathrin and Father Dennehey.

“Well hello there Jack,” said Father Dennehey. “Kathrin and I were just about to get something to eat. Would you like to join us?”

“Sure,” I said, Kathrin smiled.

We walked over to a local burger joint, and Kathrin said: “If you give me some money I'll get the food.”

Father Dennehey and I found a table in the corner by the window.

“She's quite independent,” I said.

“She's been that way ever since her mother died.”

“How is she handling her father's death?”

“Better than most I would say, considering she's lost both her parents.”

“Poor kid.”

“She's a strong girl, Jack, she'll pull through.”

Despite what Father Dennehey said, Kathrin looked small standing in line at the counter. But Father Dennehey did not want to dwell on it.

“So did you go to the accident scene?” he asked.

“Yes I did.”

“And what did you think?”

“It could have been an accident.”

“So that's it then?”

“Not quite.”

“Oh!”

“You see Father, the reason I came back wasn't to attend Tom's funeral. I mean I didn't even know he was dead till I showed up at the visitation. I came here because, on the day he died, Tom called me and left a message on my answer machine. Something was troubling him. He didn't tell me what that was, so now I need to find out myself, and see if it had anything to do with his death.”

“Anything yet?” asked Father Dennehey.

“Not really. I've been going over his movements in the 24 hours before he died. There were a lot of things happening.”

“I see.”

“Can I ask you, Father, why Tom wanted to meet with you?”

“Meet with me?”

“Yes, last Tuesday, the day he died. It's written in his diary.”

“He had a diary?”

“Yes, a small diary where he kept his appointments. He had you marked down for 11am.

“Oh yes right! Now I remember. It was just a church matter. You know your brother was involved a fair bit; especially after the plant closed. He was quite the organizer, head of various committees, fund-raising drives, that sort of thing.”

“So there was nothing troubling him?”

“If there was, he didn't share it with me.”

I looked out the window; I could see the church spire in the distance. Grey clouds were moving in, and a light rain began to fall. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small appointment diary.

“There's another entry in the diary. An appointment Tom made with a police detective called Dan Hoskins.” I showed the entry to Father Dennehey. “I think he may have been the last person to see him alive, but no one seems to know who he is.”

“I don't think I know anyone by that name,” said Father Dennehey.

“No, no, no,” said Kathrin who had come up to the table with the food and had seen us looking at the name in the diary. “You're reading it wrong. It's not Detective Dan Hoskins 3:30pm, it's Detective Dan at Hoskins 3:30pm. Look, it's a coffee shop.”

She was pointing out through the window across the street, to a rundown café. I watched as an elderly couple went inside, above the door a badly lit sign read: Hoskins' coffee and donuts.

**

By the time we came out from the meal it was dark. I said goodbye to Kathrin and Father Dennehey, and then phoned Ben Martin. He was still in his office, and he agreed to wait for me.

I drove down Main Street . A damp cold was creeping in with the night. The lights in the stores seemed inviting; their neon signs threw color out across the wet streets. But beyond the downtown, the road looked dark and unfriendly. Headlights glared at me as they passed.

My phone rang in my pocket. I pulled over to the side. It was Lou.

“What you got Lou?”

“There are two guys named Hendricks. Eric Hendricks, convicted of fraud. It looks like he was caught fixing the books. The other Hendricks is a scumbag called, Larry. He's a pimp who works on the south side of the city. He's a sleaze ball who'd do anything for money.”

**

The police garage was dark and quiet now. A single light shone in Ben's office. He was the only one there now, busily typing away, looking about ready to call it a day. My interruption rescued him from his toil.

We crossed the large garage, the only illumination the dull glow from Tom's office. Our footsteps echoed in the empty silence. It was dark at the far end of the garage. I stood there in the shadows as Ben reached for a switch. A flash of light and the wreck of Tom's car appeared abruptly before me, as if from nowhere, its destruction, a grotesque reminder of a violent death.

Ben leant against a work bench and watched me.

“Did you find anything wrong with the car?” I asked.

“No.”

“Brakes, steering?”

“All fine.”

I walked to the back of the vehicle. There was a dent there that looked different to the others, not squashed but punched. I knelt down and took a closer look. At the deepest part of the dent I thought I saw a different color.

“What did you make of this?” I asked Ben.

He lifted himself up from the work bench as if his weariness were a gravity he had to break free of, and came around to see where I was looking.

“Yes,” he said. “It's a dark blue color, a shade used in the new Ford F150. It's a little hard to tell when this damage occurred.”

“It looks pretty fresh to me.”

“I agree, but whether it occurred at the crash scene or in a parking lot the week before is anybody's guess.”

“Suspicious though, don't you think, considering the circumstances.”

“I agree, and that's what I said in my report.”

“Well I was told that there was no doubt it was an accident.”

“What can I say, Jack, it's not up to me to investigate these things. I leave that up to the cop dealing with it.”

“And who was that?”

“Detective Danilevski.”

“Who?”

“Detective Danilevski.”

“And he picked up the report?”

“Well I'm not sure. I wasn't here when the report was picked up. And whoever picked it up didn't sign for it.”

“What?”

“That's not as suspicious as it sounds. It happens quite a lot. Sometimes we're really busy and they can't be bothered to wait.”

**

After I left Ben I headed back towards the downtown. The rain was steady now, my windshield wipers barely keeping up. I made a call when I stopped at the next light.

“Hey Jonny, it's Jack.”

“What's up, Jack?”

“We need to meet.”

“Well come by the office, I'm still at work.”

“No, Jonny, we need to meet somewhere away from the station.”

“How about Eddies Bar and Grill? It's over on 4 th Avenue . They do a good steak and my stomach's been rumbling all afternoon.”

As I drove over to 4 th Avenue , I tried to get things clear in my head. Tom stops to fix a flat, witnesses a murder, a hit. The next day his car goes off the road at a dangerous bend. Every one is led to believe that it was an accident. The cop in charge of the investigation just happens to be the last person Tom met before he died. And the one report that could contradict all this somehow goes missing.

But if Tom witnessed the hit on Monday night, why did he wait till Tuesday afternoon before he contacted the police? Tom must have seen something that night that caused him to hesitate. It seems possible that he knew the murdered man, was that it?

As I pulled into the parking lot outside Eddies Bar and Grill, I found myself looking at all the pick-ups parked there. Ben had said the dent in the back of Tom's car had been caused by a blue Ford F-150, and an image passed through my mind of Jerry and Carmen and the two Dobermans driving away from the visitation in a large blue Ford F-150. Was that the reason Tom had been reluctant to go to the Police? Was it Jerry he saw that night carrying out the hit?

I guess in the end Tom's conscience got the better of him, and he met with Detective Danilevski and told him everything. Was it that testimony that got him killed? Was Danilevski a bad cop? On hearing what Tom had seen, did Danilevski go to Jerry and tell him they had a problem that needed to be taken care of?

Poor Tom. He must have felt so alone. And then once he was dead, the only person left championing his cause was Kathrin, and no one took her seriously. And that's how it would have stayed; a case that quietly disappeared. But then I showed up. No one thought they'd ever see me again. And they would have been right. But then they hadn't counted on Kathrin convincing her father to call me: “I told him that if he were in trouble, you'd help. That's what brothers do.”

**

Jonny was already inside. He'd ordered a steak, and I found him with his mouth watering, nursing a beer and looking anxiously toward the kitchen. He smiled when he saw me.

“So, Jack, what's up?” His words followed closely by his lie-detector eyes.

I came straight to the point: “Do you know a guy named Danilevski?”

The hawk eyes vanished, surprised perhaps by my question. “Not too well,” he said. “He usually covers narcotics.”

“So that's all he does?”

“Not in a place as small as Middleton. We pretty much have to cover whatever comes along. Say, what's all this about?”

I hesitated for a moment, knowing what his reaction was going to be. The restaurant wasn't too busy, quiet enough so that I could hear the rain against the window, tapping on the glass as if with babies' fingers.

“I'm not so sure my brother's crash was an accident.”

Jonny sighed and looked away from me for a moment.

“Jonny?”

He turned back to me and took a swig of beer. He didn't seem so anxious about his food anymore.

“Why, Jack,” he said, the words fell from his mouth, tired and bitter. “Why don't you think it was an accident?”

“I think my brother saw something he wasn't supposed to see.”

“What?”

“I think he witnessed that murder out at the plant.”

I felt the eyes of the hawk on me again.

“Go on.” He said.

“He got a puncture on his way home on Monday night, out on the old plant road. He pulls over to the side of the road, it's all over-grown there, so no one saw him, but he saw them. He sees them shoot Hendricks. But it's not just the hit that freaks him out. It's who was carrying out that hit. He knows them. He slips away, but doesn't go to the police, not right away at least; not till his conscience gets the better of him. He calls the police and gets patched through to this Danilevski. Meets with him and tells him what he witnessed. It can't have been too long after that meeting that somebody rams him off the road into the ravine.

“It must have been Danilevski who tipped them off. And guess who takes charge of the crash investigation? Danilevski. And that would have been the end of it; an unfortunate accident on the River Road and just another execution without witnesses.”

Jonny T had sat back in his seat, his arms folded across his chest. He closed his eyes, as if going over what I had told him, and then he opened them and said:

“Are you sure Tom contacted, Danilevski?”

“Yeah, Tom kept a diary. The appointment was written in it.” Jonny didn't look too happy with what I'd told him. “I know it's not something you want to hear,” I said. “Nobody likes a dirty cop.”

“Well hold on, Jack, there's no proof of anything yet.”

Now it was my turn to be annoyed.

“Listen, Jonny, if this guy got my brother killed, I as sure aint gonna sit around here twiddling my thumbs.”

“Whoa! Jack, I know he was your brother and maybe that's why you're not thinking straight. But if you want justice for Tom, then you need to tread carefully. If you go stomping around now, then Danilevski is liable to begin covering up again. Why don't you hold off and let me do some sniffing around.”

“Maybe you're right,” I said. “How about the two of us work together?” I knew what his answer was going to be, but it was just a ruse. I needed him to think he'd convinced me.

“You look beat, Jack,” he said. “Why don't you call it a day, and I'll contact you if anything turns up.”

I gave him my tired look, and sank back in the chair.

“Where are you staying?”

I told him and then said that I'd head out there now.

“You should take it easy, Jack.”

I nodded and shook his hand. He patted me on the shoulder as I stood up to leave.

**

I got back to my car and drove away, around the corner and then over to the side of the road. Whether Jonny liked it or not, I wasn't going to just go back to the motel. If there was one thing I hated it was a crooked cop, and if this Danilevski had got my brother killed, then I wasn't going to just sit around and wait.

I called the station and asked for Detective Danilevski. The desk sergeant told me that Danilevski was at home with the flu. I asked for his home address, but they wouldn't give it to me. Fair enough, it was in the phone book anyway: 630 Pall Mall over near 5 th Avenue .

I drove across town. The rain was still coming down; trying to wash Middleton clean, but it would take more than a night of heavy rain to clean away the sins of this place.

630 Pall Mall was an old apartment block that had seen better days. I took the elevator up to the 5 th floor. The hallway was dim and smelt of cats. If Danilevski was on the take, then why did he live in a place like this?

I rang the bell. No reply. I pushed the bell again, this time for a full five seconds. I heard someone moan and stumble about, and then I heard them turn the lock. A big burly bear of a guy, in a bathrobe and slippers, opened the door. He wiped his nose with a handkerchief the size of a small sail and grunted:

“What do you want?”

“Hey, my name is Jack Best, can I come in?”

“I'm sick, can't you come back later?”

“This can't wait, detective,” I said moving forwards towards him. He didn't move. It was like hitting a wall of Jello.

“Why can't it wait?” he growled.

“You met with my brother, Tom Best, at Hoskins last Tuesday afternoon, and now he's dead; and it looks like you were the last person to see him alive.”

Tom's name tried to penetrate through the dull mist of Danilevski's head cold, and finally made it through. He let me in.

The apartment was a mess. Unwashed dishes and cups everywhere, a mess of blankets on the couch, pills and bottles of cough medicine all sticky on the table, and scrunched up tissues overflowing the wastebasket. Danilevski blew his nose like a trumpeting elephant ready to charge. His clouded eyes tried to focus.

“What time is it?”

I told him.

“Let me get dressed.” He walked off towards the bedroom. A few minutes later he came back, wearing pants and a sweater. He'd washed his face and seemed more alive.

“You met my brother last Tuesday afternoon at Hoskins?”

Danilevski shook his head.

“What?” I said.

“Your brother never showed up.”

So Danilevski was trying to cover it all up.

“He wrote the meeting down in his diary.”

“That's as maybe,” said Danilevski, “But he never came.”

“So do you remember what he wanted to see you about?”

“No. I told him to come down to the station to see me, but he said he couldn't do that, that he had to meet away from the station house.”

The words seemed familiar to me. It was like the line I used with Jonny T. I began to back track.

“Was it by chance that he spoke to you? I mean when he phoned the station, did he ask for you specifically?”

“They told me there was some guy on the phone who wanted to speak to me.”

“Do you know why he asked to speak to you?”

Danilevski gave out a loud snort that sounded like a rhino laughing.

“Yes I do,” he said. He got up from the couch and picked up a picture frame that stood on the bookshelf. He handed it to me. It was a certificate awarded to Danilevski for bravery in the line of duty.

I looked at him.

“Yeah,” he said, “your brother said that he knew because of this award that I was a guy he could trust.”

“You heard what happened to my brother?”

“Yeah, I did. That's why I asked for the crash investigation. A guy calls me to set up a meeting to tell me something important, but doesn't show, next thing I know he's dead. Yeah, I was interested alright. But then BAM! I get hit with this flu thing. It knocks me right out. This is the first day I've been out of bed since last Wednesday.”

“So you didn't pick up the crash report from Ben Martin?”

“No.”

Everything that Danilevski was telling me said that he was not a bent cop. But something didn't fit right.

“Did you tell anyone that you were going to meet my brother?”

“No. Like I said, your brother wanted to tell me and no one else, so I kept it that way. Do you know what he wanted to see me about?” Life was coming back to Danilevski's eyes as his mind began to engage.

“Yes,” I said, “I think I do. I think my brother witnessed a murder out at the plant on Monday night. And he knew the people who did it, and that scared him. It confused him too; he didn't know who to turn to. But in the end he decided that you were the guy he could trust. But somehow the killers found out that he witnessed the murder, and before he had a chance to speak to you they killed him.”

A sharp raspy ring rang out. It was the door bell.

“Who the hell is that?” said Danilevski. “I don't get callers for weeks on end and then I get two in twenty minutes.”

“Wait,” I said. No one had bothered Danilevski all this time; because no one up to this point had thought that he had anything to do with this. No one knew that Tom had even spoken to him. But if they had been following me, or heard that I was looking for him, then it wouldn't take much for them to realize that Danilevski could be trouble.

I looked out of the window down into the street. There was a dark blue Ford pick up parked at the roadside behind my car, a trail of exhaust fumes rising into the cool evening air. I nodded for Danilevski to come and look.

“Ben Martin said that it was possible a vehicle like that could have pushed Tom's car off the road at the ravine,” I said.

“You think they've come for me?”

“Loose ends.”

“But why wait till now?”

“Because they didn't know you knew anything about this.”

“But I don't.”

“But they don't know that. I guess they've been following me, or someone tipped them off that I'd been looking for you.”

We went to the door, and stood either side of the entry. Then I yanked the door open. One of the Dobermans stood there, a gun in his hand. He fired as soon as the door opened. Probably figuring that Danilevski would have been standing there, but the bullet flew into empty space. Then we sprang. Danilevski grabbed the Doberman's arms and I punched him hard in the jaw. A look of shock on the gunman's face and before he knew what was happening we had him on the ground out cold. Danilevski took away his gun and then handcuffed him to the radiator.

“We have to get out of here,” I said.

There was no way to get to my car, so we headed down to the basement and the underground garage. We climbed into Danilevski's old Taurus. There was a chance, we thought, that they did not know Danilevski's car, and that we'd be able to just slip away, but as soon as we came up the ramp they were onto us. Danilevski put his foot down and we skidded as we turned onto the street. The blue pick up let out a deep growl as it came after us.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“The Station House,” he said.

We sped down Pall Mall and turned onto 5 th Avenue . The pick up closed in on us as it gathered up speed. We headed north on 1 st Street , our tires screeching on the wet asphalt as we turned.

1 st Street was busy, but it didn't stop Danilevski. He twisted and turned the Taurus as we weaved around the other cars. But then ahead of us the traffic was stopped at a red light. Beyond it we could see a long line of brake lights blocking our way.

Danilevski pulled into the oncoming lane of traffic, narrowly avoided a big truck and then took a sharp right down a street empty of traffic. The pick up got caught in the traffic and we got a fair lead on him.

I didn't know the street we had been forced to take, but I knew it didn't go to the Station House.

“Where does this road go?” I yelled above the screaming engine.

“To an old junk yard. It's a dead end, but maybe we can lose them in the yard.”

The gates to the yard had been pulled to at closing time. We crashed through them and then turned down an alley lined on each side by piles of crushed cars. Then after 50 yards or so, Danilevski hung a right and then another. We could hear the pick ups engine, but could no longer see them. We turned again and came back to the edge of the open space by the entrance.

It was just another 50 yards and we'd be out of there. But the guys in the pick up were smarter than we had thought they were. They'd been waiting for us. They came at us from the right, running at speed as they rammed into us. The Taurus jerked sideways into a mess of old cars. The side of our vehicle crushed down on my leg. Danilevski smashed his head on the dash and was out cold.

But the pick up had hit us too fast. It spun off and smashed into the steel post of an engine crane. The driver's head smashed through the windshield. It was Jerry. His head smacked hard onto the hood. Blood, vivid and dark red, spewed out of his mouth.

A sudden silence fell on the scene. The only sound was the spotlight that hung above us, as it moved back and forth in the cool breeze. Then the passenger door of the pick up opened. A man got out and walked towards me. He had a shotgun. It was Jonny T.

“Jonny!”

“Things have changed in this town, Jack. A man's got to move with the times.”

“It was you Tom saw that night. You and Jerry, shooting the guy Tom was supposed to meet the next day.”

“Yeah and now the only ones who care are you and Big Dan. You shouldn't have come home, Jack. Don't you know you can never go back?”

I struggled to free myself, but my leg was jammed in tight. Jonny lifted the shotgun. His finger tight on the trigger.

“Time's up, Jack.”

There was a flash of light and a bang that seemed to explode in my ear. Jonny T fell backwards onto the ground, a hole in his chest. Danilevski's grim face beside me, his revolver smoking in his hand.

It didn't take the fire-fighters too long to cut me free. Amazingly all I had were cuts and bruises, but my leg was very painful. Danilevski told me that he'd come to and heard me and Jonny talking, and heard Jonny admit to the crime. When Jonny raised his shotgun to kill me, Danilevski had drawn his service revolver and fired.

**

I watched Father Dennehey come out of the church. He looked up at the sky, at the grey clouds that seemed to hang just above our heads, and pulled the collar of his coat up around his neck. I walked up the path to meet him.

“Father.”

“Ah! Jack, good to see you're OK. So are you off to New Dresden?”

“Almost,” I said, my words felt solid in my mouth, hard to say, for the place they came from was bitter and sad. “I just have one more thing to do before I go. It's just a loose end in the case that I need to tidy up.”

“Oh yes,” he said.

“It looks like Jonny T. was providing police protection for Jerry and his associates. No one knew of course, and that's how they carried out the hit on Larry Hendricks. Jonny T “arrested” Hendricks on a trumped up charge. He puts him in handcuffs and into the back of his car, but doesn't drive him to the Station House; instead he drives him out to the factory where Jerry and his boys were waiting. And there's Larry all alone, with only the protection of a cop who'd sold him out.

“So Jerry pops Hendricks. Jonny T takes the case, which would go nowhere, and all would have been fine. Except for one thing; Tom witnessed it. But you see, Father, here's the thing: no one knew that Tom had seen it go down, and yet he ends up dead. How? At first I thought it was Danilevski who'd let the killers know there was a witness to the hit, but I was wrong. Danilevski and Tom never met. But before Tom had even phoned Danilevski, he confided in someone else. Somebody he thought he could trust; somebody who should have been beyond reproach. He confided in that person, told them what he knew, and it was that confession that got him killed.

“It wasn't a church matter he talked to you about on Tuesday morning was it? He told you didn't he? Told you what he had seen.”

Father Dennehey looked at me and his whole body suddenly seemed to sag.

“He came to you for help, Father. He trusted you and you betrayed him. You told Jerry, even when you must have known that they would kill him. Why Father? Why did you do it? I thought Tom was your friend.”

“I'm sorry, Jack.”

Detective Danilevski appeared from around the back of the church and came up to us.

“But why, Father?” I said, my voice almost a whisper.

“Because of Larry Hendricks,” said Danilevski. “He was blackmailing you wasn't he, Father?”

Father Dennehey looked up at Danilevski and then back down at the ground, as if he expected it to open up and swallow him down into the bowels of Hell.

“Hendricks had pictures didn't…”

“Please,” Father Dennehey interrupted Danilevski. “Please, he doesn't need to know. Hendricks wanted $50,000, or he was going to show the evidence to Tom. It would have finished me. But I didn't have that sort of money. I told him that, and he said he didn't care, said that there were plenty of things in the church that were worth money. I didn't know what to do. There was only one man I knew who could take care of it, and that was Jerry. I thought he would just threaten him, make him stop. But then they killed him, and I was implicated. It would have been OK, but then Tom came to me and…I'm sorry, Jack.”

Danilevski took out his cuffs.

“Do I need these?” he said to Father Dennehey.

Father Dennehey gave him a look of utter defeat, and the two of them walked slowly down the path to the police car. As he bent to get into the cruiser, the rain began to fall from the brooding clouds like a scourge across the town.

I looked up at the church. It was an old brick building, built when this town was young. It was the one thing that seemed unchanged by everything that had gone on, but it hadn't protected Father Dennehey, hadn't stopped him from losing his faith.

I went to the door and entered. The ache in my leg gnawed at me, so I sat down in one of the pews and let out a big sigh. It was a big church, high vaulted ceiling, stained glass in long gothic windows.

It easy to believe in something when things are going well, but when they start to go wrong some people lose their confidence, believe that their God can't help them, believe that their town is finished, lost. But there were others. People with strong hearts, who stay true, people who remain focused on what is right; people like Tom, like Danilevski, and even young…

**

The Youth Hall was a grim looking building.

“If you'd just like to sign these papers, it shouldn't take me long,” she said as she left the room.

I signed the forms and sat there in the Directors office. I could hear children playing and shouting somewhere outside, but despite this the office seemed quiet, an antiseptic peace.

A few minutes passed and then I heard a door open down the hall, footsteps approaching, and then there she was, standing beside the Director. When she saw me, tears came into her eyes.

“I knew,” she said, “I just knew.”

We loaded her stuff into the car: a suitcase, a back pack full of school books, and a ragged old teddy bear. We drove out through Middleton, through a town wet with the rain, memories passing through our minds, silent goodbyes on our closed lips.

The rain had stopped by the time we reached the highway, and the sun came out as we began the long drive home together, back to New Dresden.